


A Monument to a Memory

by ThisDominionIsMine



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disabled Character, F/M, and a dog named god, and is still the best lawyer on the continent, dag may or may not be a witch, max has a bar, toast has a garage, trans!Dag, valkyrie has a permanent spine injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisDominionIsMine/pseuds/ThisDominionIsMine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past is a shattered thing, strung together by the fragments we can remember. Furiosa's brain is loaded to capacity: work, life, death, injury. Her arm. Valkyrie's spine. Toast's garage. Angharad's recipes. Motorcycles that need to be repaired. Bills that have to be paid. Capable's fresh-off-the-internet life hacks and advice. Dag's latest blind date setup.</p><p>For once in her life, Furiosa drinks to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Monument to a Memory

The blind date goes about as badly as any blind date Furiosa has ever been on, which is to say that it is awkward and too long and generally _abysmal_ , which is mostly a shame because Dag is the one who knew him, and Furiosa actually expected her to have a better read on male standards of decency than Toast. At least Toast tends to procure men who aren’t perturbed by a metal arm or grease stains, because that’s all that Dag’s candidate can stare at.

Even before they’re finished, Furiosa can barely remember his name, because she keeps thinking “ _whinger_ ” when she tries to recall it. It has been a long time since she met a grown man who actually _whined_ , but whine he does: about the weather, the traffic, the service speed, the food (he sends back a well-done steak three times because “there’s still red in the middle”), and then, finally, as they’re one of the last tables in the restaurant, once he actually tears his gaze upwards to look her full in the face for only the second time the entire night, he says, “You do know your nose is crooked, right? You really ought to get that fixed.”

Their waiter is just behind his shoulder, expression already braced for another round of complaints; he stops walking, looks Furiosa full in the face, furrows his brow, and gives one sharp shake of his head. He’s tall, pale with a puppyish look to his limbs, probably barely legal to drink. His nametag reads ‘Nux’.

Furiosa smiles. She lifts her prosthetic to beckon Nux up to the table while digging for her wallet with her hand. “When’s your shift over?”

“You’re my last table, ma’am.”

“Great.” It’s not a particularly nice restaurant, and Furiosa isn’t exactly flush at the moment, but it feels good to press three twenties into Nux’s hand. She jerks her chin at the man across the table. “Don’t let him leave without paying the bill. The whole bill. With at least ten percent tip.”

“Who do you think you are?” demands the man masquerading as a romantic prospect.

“Done with you,” Furiosa says mildly. She shakes Nux’s hand. “Good luck, mate.” And then she walks out.

***

Adelaide’s city center is as thickly populated with bars and pubs as it is with first-date restaurants, but Furiosa settles into a long, steady stride heading east, across Victoria Square, and then north for a few minutes, and then east again.

The bar’s sign says ‘Beware of Dog’; she has heard it called Bad Dog, Mad Dog, Big Dog, Sleepy Dog, Guard Dog, Dead Dog, and any number of other names along that line. But Max has only ever called it ‘The Dog’. Walking inside feels like crawling under a warm blanket on a frigid night.

The dog is question is a huge Akita named God, black-faced with a gray body and white splashed across his belly, tail, and legs, frequently seen asleep under various tables or stools, or nosing at clients’ hands  and shoes. When Furiosa shoulders the door open, he is sprawled across the open floor of the bar on his back, getting a belly rub from Capable and several giggly friends who have a university look about them. Max gives her a nod from behind the bar.

The door swings shut behind Furiosa, and she breathes – it feels like – for the first time since the whinger’s eyes fell from her face to her chest to her prosthetic and didn’t leave.

She goes to God, and drops to her knees next to the big old dog, sinking her fingers into his belly fur while he warbles happily.

“Didn’t you have a date tonight?” Capable asks. She’s bright, peppy, a little too forward – Max has either just cut her off or will shortly. “The bloke Dag knows?”

“It was bad,” Furiosa says, and then gets up to sit at the bar before Capable can finish saying “Awwwwwww” and start trying to hug her. There are no dogs to pet at the bar, but also no bright, inquisitive girls asking questions. Only Max.

“Where are we drawing the line tonight?” he asks.

Furiosa looks at her prosthetic, at how the soft lights glint off her metal fingers. She cleaned the thing this morning. For her date.

Max waits.

“If you cut me off, I may try to cut your hands off,” she says slowly. “I don’t really want to remember what I just spent three hours tolerating.”

Max stands there and looks at her. “You’ve already had some.”

“Two glasses of cheap wine… and a vodka martini.”

Max raises his eyebrows.

Furiosa points at a bottle of whiskey directly behind his left shoulder. “Please?”

Max grabs the bottle without taking his eyes off her face. “Where’s your wallet?”

She slides it across the counter.

“Keys?”

She makes him catch them out of the air with his free hand.

“Phone?”

“No. I’m keeping it. Don’t even have the whinger’s number; I’ll be fine.”

Max studies her expression for a moment, then tilts the bottle forward over a glass.

***

She can still remember her dinner, which is _not_ an improvement, although the whinger’s name has definitely been washed away, and most of the details about what he looked like. There are now fuzzy extensions to the story, too: most of them involve talking to Max – or _at_ Max, in any case. A relation of a smattering of details about her date somehow led to the procurement of a basket of fish and chips, even though she was sure the cook was long gone. The salt on her hands must have drawn God over; she has his begging face framed in her mind. And then, later, sitting behind the bar, on the floor because that’s where God was, and you don’t just not pet a dog when he’s asking for a belly rub. And then she was sitting _on_ the bar, firmly in possession of some kind of bottle, watching Max stack chairs and wipe tables.

After that, she only has the impression of flickering shadows and a great warmth.

Furiosa opens her eyes and sees God.

He’s next to her on the bed – not _Furiosa’s_ bed, notably – sprawled out on his belly like he owns the thing, dead asleep. The bedroom is a pretty unremarkable one: the white walls are bare; the furniture old and made of sturdy wood, for all that it’s limited to a bed, dresser, small bedside table, and bookshelf. There’s a wrench on the bedside table, and a small bottle of machine oil.

She had seen Max’s knee brace before, but she can now recall – from when she was sitting behind the bar to pet God – _staring_ at it, and trying to come up with a way to improve it.

Shortly thereafter, her brains actually fits that piece into the puzzle and Furiosa stops breathing, then does a mental re-start to take a full assessment. She is in Max’s bed – Max the barkeep; Max who she has never seen outside the bar; Max the grumbly, grunting, always-in-the-background fixed point. She is fully clothed, except for her boots, which have been set on the floor next to the bed, and her leather jacket, which is folded on top of the dresser next to her prosthetic. Max is not in the bed; the pillow on God’s side appears untouched. There is blurry dawn daylight coming through the windows, which give a view of the street across from The Dog when she climbs out of the bed and pulls the blinds open.

The movement wakes up God; he gives a little grunt, then scrabbles his way off the bed and pads out of the room through an open door. Furiosa follows to find Max face-down on a couch that looks like it’s older than he is. God thunders straight up on top of him, so the first sound Furiosa hears out of Max that day is a kind of distraught rumbling shortly accompanied by snapping fingers and the word “ _Down_.”

God huffs, then jumps off Max and pads over to Furiosa to lick her fingertips.

“Morning, Max.”

Max grunts and flips over onto his back, one arm tossed up behind his head, hair a complete riotous mess. He studies her face and asks, “Head hurt?” by way of greeting.

She smiles. “Got any eggs?”

His eyebrows climb. “Don’t eat them raw. Doesn’t work.”

Furiosa shakes her head, then rakes her hand through her hair and schools her expression into check. “Do you decide to board your customers frequently? And give them your own bed?”

“You pulled a bloody massive knife when I tried to cut you off.” Max says this with such a wry twist to his mouth that Furiosa has to believe him. “You were blacked out – thought you might kill any cab I called.” He hesitates, then reaches into his pocket and flings a spiky, jingling blur at her head.

She catches her keys in her prosthetic and grinds the heel of her hand into her eye. “Shit. I… how did you know I was blacked out?”

“You laid off for a long while to pet God, and came out of it just long enough to realize you were still in The Dog, and announced that you needed to start drinking again.”

“When was I sitting on the bar with the bottle?”

“After you put away the knife.”

“Shit.”

Max sits up, then stands carefully, favoring his bad knee. He tilts his chin up to look her full in the face. “Three years you’ve been coming to the Dog, you’ve never intentionally drunk yourself into a blackout.” He reaches into his back pocket this time, and hands over her wallet.

“I had a bad date.”

His eyebrows hitch.

“A bad first date at the end of a string of bad first dates that started over a year ago and have all been set up by my friends.” She tucks away her wallet so she has an excuse to look away. “I wanted to be dumb. I _was_ dumb, clearly. You had to deal with the consequences. I’m sorry I forced that on you.”

Max’s shirt rustles as he shrugs. When she turns her eyes on him again, he’s looking down at God. “How’d you like your eggs?”

***

Valkyrie is standing when Furiosa walks into the flat. Her chair is right next to her, should she need it, but for the moment Valkyrie is standing at the sink, scrubbing a frying pan. Her head turns when Furiosa nudges the door shut behind her. “Hey there.”

“Hey.” Furiosa drops her jacket across a chair and moves to grab a drying rag. “You didn’t send out a search party for me?”

Val hands her the pan. “You sent a text – with great spelling, by the way – about being at The Dog. Max called a while later. I could hear you in the background.” She bends to reach for a fork that’s sitting in the bottom of the sink with her left hand, but freezes on the way there and then makes an abrupt change of gears to grab for the edge of the sink instead. Furiosa gets her prosthetic wrapped around Valkyrie’s waist and folds her hand around Valkyrie’s right elbow. “ _Fucker_ ,” Val spits at the fork. “Fucking _fuck_.” Her heart is thudding fast enough for Furiosa to feel. “Shit. My chair still there?”

“Yeah.” Furiosa lets go of her arm, grabs the chair and hauls it up close, and moves her body out of the way so Val can grip the arms with bulging biceps and let her body sink into it. Furiosa grabs the offending fork and stuffs it into the dishwasher. “Were you okay last night?”

“I’m crippled, not a fetus.” Valkyrie leans her forehead into the heel of her hand. There’s sweat shimmering on her brow. Her jaw clenches, then lets go, and she sits straight again. “You went home with Max the bartender. The date was that bad?”

“Why are we talking about my love life when – ”

Valkyrie stops her with a jerk of the hand. “You love life changes. My spine being a broken piece of shit doesn’t.” She does a two-fingered twitch at the coffee pot. “Actually, grab me a cup while you try to invent proof that your love life _has_ changed. I’ve got some paperwork I need to start.” Just like that, she wheels a tight turn out of the kitchen and disappears around the corner in the direction of her desk.

Furiosa pulls a mug with a fat penguin on it from the cabinet, sets it on the counter, and fills it with coffee in a series of jointed motions. Then she repeats the process with a mug that has a photo of a pod of orcas stretched around it. She puts extra sugar in the penguin mug, but less milk, then carries both out of the kitchen.

Valkyrie has wheeled herself up in front of her desk, which is stacked with papers, case files, and a riot of pens and sticky notes, with a monitor and keyboard hidden somewhere amidst it all. There’s a Grumpy Cat calendar hanging behind the monitor. Her printer wheezes to life as Furiosa sets the penguin mug down in a few square centimeters she clears beside the keyboard.

“I don’t want to talk about men.”

“’Kay, I don’t want to talk about my fucking spine.”

“Okay.” Furiosa sinks into the armchair next to the desk.

Valkyrie picks up her mug with both hands. “You going into the garage today?”

“Took the morning off. Could still go in early and work on your bike.”

“Leave the bike to me.” A pause. “You should at least eat before you go in.”

“Already did.”

Valkyrie glances sideways at her over the rim of the penguin mug. Her “’Kay” echoes slightly.

“Stop it.”

“’Kay.” Valkyrie puts the mug down. “You’re kind of limiting our conversation options.”

Furiosa gulps coffee instead of answering.

“Fine.” Valkyrie holds one hand up in front of her own face, examining her fingers with a wrinkled brown. “Ah, crap.” She plucks a tube off a stack of papers on her right and smears some of its contents across the tiny blisters that Furiosa knows must have appeared along the side of her right ring finger. Then the bottom of the middle finger. Then across her palm.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing. You know it’s a stress thing.”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

Valkyrie sighs. “You keep worrying about me you’re gonna have your own stress-triggered body crap to worry about.”

Furiosa shrugs one shoulder. “I love you.”

Valkyrie side-eyes her again. “Go to work, Fury.” A pause. “Love you, too.”

Furiosa sets down her cup and shoves herself out of the armchair to go in search of a travel mug. She bends to kiss the top of Valkyrie’s head as she ambles by, and can feel Valkyrie rolling her eyes.

***

Furiosa feels someone kick her leg as she’s waist-deep on her back under a Camry that is well past the end of its expected life span. “Didn’t you have a date last night?” Toast.

“Don’t you have things to do?”

“Yeah, I got things.” Toast nudges her again. “Capable said it didn’t go so well.”

“Why you askin’ me, then, if Capable told you everything?”

Toast heaves an exaggerated sigh before she begins her list: “Because you never tell Max not to cut you off, and that’s weird; and you pulled a knife – or so I heard – which isn’t weird in and of itself but you pulled it on _Max_ , and that’s weird; and you stayed at the Dog even after Max kicked everyone else out to close, and that’s weird; and you came in even though you took the morning off and obviously have a hangover, and that’s weird, and I don’t like weird shit following around my favorite mechanic.”

Furiosa heaves a sigh of her own and shoves herself out from under the Camry. “I’m working, ain’t I?”

Toast is shrouded in a halo of blazing light. “Are you okay?”

“I do have a hangover.” Furiosa squints pointedly as she says it. “It’s darker under the car.”

Toast moves so she blocks more of the light. Her white shirt hasn’t actually been white for a long time, and Furiosa has watched her jeans grow larger and larger holes at the knee for over a year. Somehow, this tiny sprite is technically Furiosa’s boss. “Do we have a problem with Max?”

“No,” Furiosa says. “Max may actually be the only human male on the planet I don’t have a problem with right now.” She goes to drag herself back under the Camry. “If you see Dag today, tell her that her date recommendations need work.”

“Fine. How’s Val?”

Furiosa hesitates, then pulls herself back out. “Worse than she’ll admit.”

“Well, yeah, but how bad? Does she need anything? Are you guys okay?”

“No charity, Toast.”

“No charity, fine.” Toast scuffs a foot on the floor. “Want any help with the bike?”

“Val wants to work on the bike herself.”

Toast spreads her hands. “I’m trying to help, Fury.”

“I know.” She nudges Toast’s ankle with her foot. “I don’t resent it. I’m just tired.”

“Okay,” Toast says. “Well, if you want to take the afternoon off instead, go home early, I got no problem with that.”

“Okay. Appreciate it.”

“Good.” It’s a credit to Toast that she knows when to let conversations die; she turns her attention away, and leaves Furiosa to her work.


End file.
